The Holy Bible: The Old and New Testaments: An Accurate Translation of the Old Words Newly Brought to Light by the Most Select Penmanship From the Original Hellenic Greek.

ZOHRABIAN, Hovhannes. [Giovanni Zohrab] [Translator].

$12,000.00

Item Number: 149504

Venice: San Lazzaro, 1805.

The first critical edition of the Bible in classical Armenian, translated by famed Benedictine monk Giovanni Zohrab (Hovhannes Zohrapian) nearly 140 years after the first Armenian Bible was printed in Amsterdam in 1666. Folio, bound in full modern calf with gilt titles and five raised bands to the spine, engraved vignette to title page, one full-page engraved plate, text in two columns in classical Armenian translated by Hovhannes Zohrapian. Darlow & Moule 1787; Nersessian 267; Cox 1984. In very good condition with marginal light ink stains and to opening leaves, a sprinkling of small wormholes, small stamp to the title page. A very nice example of this rarity.

Giovanni Zohrab (Hovhannes Zohrapean, or Zohrapian, 1756–1829) was a Benedictine monk at the renowned Armenian monastery on the island of San Lazzaro near Venice. For his translation of the Armenian Bible, he selected as his base text the oldest complete and dated manuscript available to him: the Venetian MS V1508, copied in 1319. He collated this manuscript with eight other complete biblical manuscripts and twenty additional New Testament manuscripts preserved in the Mekhitarist collection in Venice. The results of his collation are recorded in the footnotes, which note significant textual variants—though the sources are generally cited in broad terms such as “some witnesses,” “a few,” or “one example.” Zohrapian’s edition, both important and enduring, appeared in two finely illustrated formats: a single quarto volume and a set of four duodecimo volumes. The first volume contains Genesis through Ruth; the second, Kings through 2 Maccabees; the third, Psalms through Ezekiel; and the fourth comprises the entire New Testament.